Captain America Premiere Report

Meeting RA at the Captain America Hollywood Premiere – July 19, 2011

By DiL and HeathRA

Our day started at 12:30 PM local time when Heather came to my house.  We carpooled (I drove) and after many miles of typical Los Angeles bumper to bumper traffic, made it to the El Capitan theatre in Hollywood at around 2 PM.  We did an initial scope of the area in front of the theatre, but the crew were still erecting and setting up everything.  So we had lunch across the street before heading back at around 3PM.  At this point, all the barriers were up, the carpet was laid out, and there were already fans lined up along the barriers on both sides of the street.  We went to stake our spot along the barriers on the same side as the theatre, which was also closer to the carpet.  It should be noted that they had erected a double row of barriers so that the fans were kept separate from the carpet by a few feet. 

Our spot was near the start where the stars get dropped off before starting their walk down the carpet.  During our wait, I overheard a group of young women to my left who were also RA fans.  I didn’t recognize any of them, but Heather and I thought dang, we’ve got competition for RA’s attention which we didn’t expect.  Also during that time, while I held our spot, Heather went down to the end barrier to talk to the security guys working the event.  Since she was dressed in a very nice dress and had a professional looking camera on her, she looked like one of the press.  She actually tried to talk her way into the press section (I was to be her assistant), and even offered to do a graphics job for free in exchange for access, but alas, none of her persuasions worked.  Darn!  She also asked them to direct RA over to our section, but none of them even know who he was.  To be honest, 99% of the folks working at the event had no clue who RA was or what he looked like.  So we waited in our original spot.

At 5:45 PM, the event started and RA was one of the first celebrities to arrive.  As soon as we saw Richard get out of the car, we recognized him right away and pointed to him yelling, “There he is!”  The young women next to me didn’t even recognize him (don’t think they’ve seen his recent photos with the beard) and asked me if that was really Richard, which we confirmed.  We yelled his name as he started down the carpet with Heather feverishly taking pictures.  I didn’t bother taking any pictures since Heather had the good camera, and she’s much taller than me.  I can’t remember if it was at this point or later where he waved to us, because Heather stopped to wave back and didn’t get a picture of him waving at us!  Once Richard passed our spot, we decided to run along the barrier behind the rest of the fans to follow his progression on the carpet since Heather could still take pictures over people’s heads, and we didn’t care about seeing any of the other celebrities.

RA’s handler, I think it was Duncan Millership (formerly of United Agents UK), but I’m not sure, directed him down the carpet to the media section.  However, they were not ready for him yet, so he went over to one spot at the fan barrier and let a couple of girls take pictures with him.  We were standing a couple of rows behind those girls, but we continued to call out to Richard, and that’s when Richard stopped and looked back at us, and Heather managed to get a couple of gorgeous close-ups of his face looking directly into her camera.  We also heard some other fan yell out calling him Lucas(!), which made Heather and I look at each other thinking, “What the heck!”  Heather yelled back that his name is Richard, not Lucas.  After that, he was directed to the media section to be interviewed. 

Since there was a big wall backdrop opposite the entire length of the media section, fans could not line up along that section to watch.  Heather and I decided to go around to the other side of the barriers, so we hustled along the back alley behind the theatre and shops to come around the other side, and went over to the barrier next to the actual theatre entrance.  There were already a lot of fans that had been there all afternoon, so we were pretty far back.  I could not see anything although Heather could see a bit over people’s heads while standing on her toes.  We chatted with the other fans around us and again, nobody had ever heard of RA.  After a while, RA entered the theatre, and we yelled for him again and even a lady in front of us (who didn’t know who he was) yelled out his name to help us out.  Unfortunately, Heather did not manage any pics at this spot since she was too far behind.  I have to say that even though almost no one had ever heard of RA, most of the other fans were really nice to us.  But Heather and I were still really disappointed that we hadn’t gotten to meet Richard.

After we talked to one of the crew guys working the event where we got more good information (most of the attendees would be going to an after party just down the street), we decided to stay and wait to get another chance after the movie.  We went and got coffee/tea at the Coffee Bean nearby.  While in the coffee shop, we noticed one of the media photographers was on his laptop doing Photoshop with the pictures he had just taken.  Heather asked him if he had any shots of Richard, he of course did not know who Richard was, but let Heather look through all his pictures anyway.  Heather found that he did have four very nice shots of Richard and asked him if she could get a copy just for her personal use.  Amazingly, the photographer gave Heather his business card and told her to just email him and he would send his pics of Richard to her! (I hope he does.) We then had a quick dinner and decided to do more recon to decide if we should wait at the theatre back door or front entrance.

We walked through the back alley again and saw groups of fans waiting at the back and side exits of the theatre.  Based on info from the event workers, we decided to go back to the area next to the front entrance, betting that RA would exit out the front.  This time, we were in the second row behind the barrier with a group of young teen girls in front of us.  Mercifully, they were petite so even I could see easily, and we chatted with them a bit.  They didn’t know who Richard Armitage was either and Heather asked them if and when Richard does come up if they would let us get up in front and to get a picture with him and then we would get out of their way.  They said sure no problem!  After waiting for over an hour, folks started exiting from the movie at about 9:30 PM.  Here I need to go a little off topic before I get to Richard, please indulge me.

Dominic Cooper came out, and this is an actor I never thought much of before, but he came right to our area and spent time with the fans signing autographs and taking pictures with them.  I thought that was really gracious and kind of him because he certainly didn’t need to.  Most of the celebrities that came out just left without another glance at the fans.  So my esteem of Dominic was definitely raised. (More on Dominic later.)  Then Richard came out and Heather and I were yelling for him, the girls in front of us yelled for him too, again to help us out even though they didn’t know who he was.  But he didn’t even turn our way and kept walking!  At this moment, Heather and I were absolutely crushed because we thought we had lost our last chance to ever meet him.  I think even those young girls in front of us felt bad for us.  I was going to cry on the inside.

All was not lost however because Heather saw him walking over to the other side of the street, past the barriers and down the street!  Well it was do or die, so we pushed our way through the mob that was behind us, ran down the street to the end of the barriers, crossed the street and hustled through the street crowds looking for Richard.  Then all of a sudden, there he was in front of us, casually strolling down the street with his handler, heading to the after party.  Talk about coming to a screeching halt!  No point being shy now, so we both yelled “Richard!” upon which he looked over at us in surprise, and then we both blurted out asking if we could please take a picture with him.  He very graciously stopped, Heather was still a bit flustered, so I went up to Richard first to have my picture taken with him.  At this moment, everything I had ever meant to say or do when meeting Richard completely flew out the window, my mind went blank!  All I remember was having the biggest smile on my face with Richard’s arm around me, and realizing how tall he is and what a shorty I am.  I felt like Dawn French.

After Heather took our picture, I got the camera while Richard and Heather posed together and took the shot.  I’ve got to say that this picture of Richard and Heather came out fantastic and they looked gorgeous together!  She then managed to tell Richard that she was the one that designed the Havoc Tour shirt for him.  At this, Richard’s face lit up and said “Really?!” and he shook her hand telling her how nice it was to meet her (with much genuine appreciation on his part) and that he still had the shirt!  He also looked at her camera and commented, “That is some camera!”  Not wanting to hold him up any longer since his handler was still waiting for him, we thanked him and as he walked away, Heather wished him much success in his career and I told him I was looking forward to the Hobbit.  He turned around and said “Thank you!”.  That’s all our brains managed to blurt out.

But we couldn’t leave it at that.  We knew they were going to the after party down the street, although we didn’t know exactly where.  So we followed Richard down the street for several blocks to see where this after party was.  We tried to stay back at a respectable distance, but the whole time I was so nervous that he would turn around, see us and have us arrested for being stalkers.  Fortunately, he never looked back so we followed all the way until he entered the club where the after party was.  That was the last we saw of Richard.  In front of the club were more fans standing behind another barrier to watch the celebrities.  With this group of fans was Dominic Cooper again, signing autographs and letting them take pictures.  What a nice guy!  After this, Heather and I slowly walked back looking through all the pictures she had taken, and stopping several times to squee.

Driving home, Heather was obsessing over her picture with Richard the whole way, though I can’t say that I blame her!  Whether you like his bearded look or not, he really is incredibly handsome, charming and beautiful in real life.  Pictures don’t quite do justice.  The long drive home also gave us a chance to muse that this most likely was the last chance to meet him like this.  Right now, RA is still unknown in Hollywood and by fans in general, but this will change once The Hobbit comes out.  He’ll be catapulted into stardom and who knows if there will ever be access at public events anymore.  In the end though, Heather and I got to live our dream, and we can only be grateful.  We can die happy now.

Many thanks to Heather and DiL for sharing their report and pictures with us all.

Pictures on this page are all enlargeable